Christopher Merrill (born February 24, 1957) is an American poet, essayist, journalist and translator. Currently, he serves as director of the
International Writing Program at the
University of Iowa. He led the initiative that resulted in the selection of
Iowa City as a
UNESCO City of Literature, a part of the
Creative Cities Network. In 2011, he was appointed to the U.S. National Commission for
UNESCO.
Life and career
Christopher Merrill was born in western Massachusetts and raised in New Jersey. He did his undergraduate work at
Middlebury College and his graduate degree at the
University of Washington. He has published six collections of poetry, including Watch Fire, for which he received the Peter I. B. Lavan Younger Poets Award from the
Academy of American Poets. He has also published translations, several edited volumes, and six books of nonfiction. His work has been translated into nearly 40 languages, and his journalism appears in many publications. For 10 years he was the book critic for the daily radio news program
The World. Merrill's honors include a
Chevalier from the French government in the
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He held the William H. Jenks Chair in Contemporary Letters at the
College of the Holy Cross before becoming the director of the
International Writing Program at the
University of Iowa in 2000.
The New Symposium: Poets and Writers on What We Hold in Common, edited with Natasa Durovicova. 2012.
Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories from Around the World, edited with Robert Shapard and James Thomas. 2015.
The Same Gate: A Collection of Writings in the Spirit of Rumi, edited with Natasa Durovicova. 2018.
Translated works
Christopher Merrill: Sajak sajak (Poems) - translated into Malay (2006)
Why the Grass Whispered Again: Selected Poems - translated into Arabic (2007)
Christopher Merrill: Notwendigkeiten (Necessities). Gedichte. translated into German. edition pen (No. 20) Löcker Verlag, Wien 2014, ISBN 978-3-85409-736-5.
